The Week Ending March 15
Topping this week’s Came to Win list is cloud cybersecurity company Zscaler for a savvy acquisition that will expand the company’s AI data capabilities.
Also making this week’s list is Juniper Networks for additions to its channel program that provide partners with expanded AI and managed networking services. Nozomi Networks scored big with a successful Series E funding round while Aryaka makes the list for launching its new SASE-as-a-service offering. And data center giant Equinix made headlines this week with the hiring of a top Google Cloud exec to be its next president and CEO
Zscaler Acquires Cybersecurity Startup Avalor To Boost AI Data CapabilitiesADVERTISEMENT
Cloud cybersecurity provider Zscaler has acquired Israel-based startup Avalor in a bid to transform AI capabilities for the cybersecurity industry.
Zscaler plans to extend its Zero Trust Exchange with Avalor’s Data Fabric for Security, which has over 150 prebuilt integrations enabling customers to proactively identify and predict critical vulnerabilities as well as improve operational efficiencies.
Avalor’s Data Fabric for Security ingests, normalizes and unifies data across enterprise security and business systems to deliver actionable insights, analytics and operational efficiencies.
By expanding Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange platform with a security-centric data fabric, Zscaler looks to enable customers to significantly enhance and fully automate AI-driven analytics and decision-making in real time without the complexity of data aggregation and collection.
Avalor CEO Raanan Raz said the Zscaler-Avalor combination will be in a “prime position” to lead the vulnerability management and data security market.
“We have long understood that being able to make sense of all the disparate security data sources in an organization is essential to understanding and improving risk posture. That’s why we delivered the industry’s first Data Fabric for Security to provide that aggregated platform,” Raz said in a statement.
Juniper Updates Channel Program To Help Partners Flex AI-Native Networking Muscle
Juniper Networks wins applause this week for revamping its partner program with a specific emphasis on AI and managed networking services.
The new elements of the Juniper Partner Advantage (JPA) Program will help partners take advantage of AIOps so they can bring managed networking services to their customers. That means new revenue opportunities for partners and a consistent, experience-first approach to networking for their customers, Gordon Mackintosh, Juniper global channel chief, told CRN.
The JPA Program updates are aimed at helping partners accelerate further into managed services, he said.
The first addition is partner-managed networking. “Partner-managed networking is really the capabilities for [partners] to have more agility, faster time to deploy the network and more SLAs that they can deliver to customers to create better customer experiences, all at a lower cost,” Mackintosh said. “We’re taking the homegrown, native AI offering and allowing partners to benefit from it in terms of how they operate the network to deliver significantly higher levels of customer satisfaction.”
Juniper is also rolling out a new Partner Assured designation to provide partners who have rich Juniper practices with third-party validation from Information Security Systems International (ISSI), a company that audits MSPs’ capabilities across the customer life cycle. The Juniper Partner Assured designation will help to boost partner profitability, Mackintosh said.
Other JPA Program updates include a new Advisor designation that rewards partners for influencing customer decisions and optimizing customer success, recognition for partners’ vertical expertise and vertical go-to-market motions, and an Enriched Partner GTM Engagement program that offers account mapping, GTM concierge services, investment, and dedicated planning through the entire customer life cycle.
Nozomi Networks Scores $100M Series E Funding To Scale IoT, OT Security Products
Operational technology and connected devices security vendor Nozomi Networks this week landed a $100 million series E funding round with plans to scale product development and go-to-market efforts.
Nozomi, based in San Francisco, received funding from Mitsubishi Electric and Schneider Electric as part of the round. Honeywell Ventures, Johnson Controls. Samsung and others with a presence in OT and internet of things (IoT) have also invested in Nozomi, which boasts of protecting more than 105 million devices worldwide.
Nozomi CEO Edgard Capdevielle said in a statement that his company has stood out for its ability to provide a security platform in heterogeneous environments with agnosticism for the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Continued cyberattacks against infrastructure worldwide has also been a factor fueling demand for Nozomi’s technology.
Nozomi also revealed this week that it has more than 12,000 installations spanning six continents and has seen fivefold growth in organic annual recurring revenue since launching its flagship Vantage product in 2021.
Equinix Wins Google Cloud Exec As Next President, CEO
Data center giant Equinix made a big move in the personnel space this week by hiring Adaire Fox-Martin, currently president of Google Cloud Go to Market, as the company’s new president and CEO.
Fox-Martin’s extensive resume includes her nearly three-year term at Google Cloud (which included serving as president of Google Cloud International), More than 13 years in executive posts (including head of global customer success) at application giant SAP, and more than 18 years in various roles – many international – at Oracle.
The Ireland native is expected to start in her new post in June, succeeding current president and CEO Charles Meyer who will move into the role of executive chairman. Fox-Martin has been a member of the Equinix board since January 2020.
Aryaka Unveils ‘Biggest Innovation’ In Company’s History: SASE As A Service
SASE specialist Aryaka showed off its technology chops this week when it launched Aryaka Unified SASE as a Service, described by the company as the first unified single-pass architecture that combines its own global private network backbone, security, observability and application performance capabilities – all in a single platform and delivered as a service.
Aryaka Unified SASE as a Service is sparking excitement with early adopters and interest from the company’s global channel partner base, Aryaka’s Senior Vice President of Global Channel Sales Craig Patterson told CRN.
“I think it’s the biggest innovation Aryaka has had since we began,” Patterson said. “This is a major transformational moment in our history where we’re now going from being known as one of the leaders in the SD-WAN space to becoming a leader in the unified SASE space and it’s going to create an unbelievable value proposition for customers because most of these other vendors out there aren’t doing thing the way we are in this unified manner.”
Elements of Aryaka Unified SASE as a Service include the company’s OnePass Architecture for distributed policy enforcement through a distributed data plane, unified control plane and single management pane; Aryaka’s Zero Trust WAN that runs on the company’s private network backbone that operates in more than 100 countries; and networking, security and observability services, including Aryaka’s SmartSecure next-generation firewall with secure web gateway, anti-malware and intrusion prevention system.